Wednesday, June 11, 2014

City of Roses Vol 1 "Wake Up" by Kip Manley

Jo has good friends, she has her tiny apartment and she
has her awful job cold calling people. It’s not a great life but she manages –
until a night out partying leads to a duel with a fae knight

Which she wins.

She is now responsible for Ysabel. The Bride. Fairy princess and the centre of
so much intrigue – and it’s Jo’s job to keep her safe. And fed. And
entertained.

This book has an excellent concept – Portland split
between 4 very different fae factions, the political manoeuvring between them,
the ritual and the scheming and the propriety all maintained. And under that
the underlying game of it all, with none of them actually able to cause real
damage to each other – until the rules of the game change.

Then there’s the princess, forced by circumstances to
live with Jo in her tiny apartment and join her on her dead end job. A faerie
princess forced into such low standards – forced to work in a call centre – how
can that not be a recipe for hijinks and shenanigans (and interesting class
commentary)?

The concept is great. The idea for the story is great. The characters have
potential.

The execution is appalling.

Firstly, while I can see why the author wants to write
this story, it simply doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why the Chariot
entered a duel with Jo, I don’t understand how that was remotely to do with
honour (hey, let’s hit a civilian with a sword for HONOUR!), I don’t understand
the whole ridiculous “losing” of it.

I don’t understand why Jo played along. I don’t
understand why Jo seemed to take the whole existence of the fae as something so
minor and easy to get used to. I don’t understand why, if she had chosen to
play their games, she didn’t take the Out that was offered her since it would
have cost her nothing.

I don’t understand why she allowed the princess to move
in with her. I don’t understand why, as a woman of such limited means, she
accepted the idea of monetarily supporting the princess.

I don’t understand why Jo has so few questions. She never asks about the fae,
the courts, why they are there, how long, what they mean even what a Gallogas
is (which is apparently her).

It doesn’t make sense.

The writing is really excessive. The description is really
over the top, long winded, unnecessary, grossly elaborate and just bloated
beyond all proportion. And it’s repetitive as hell, I knew what everyone was
wearing at all times in ridiculous and unnecessary detail that would be repated
when referring to that character over and over again. Every setting and scene
had every inch described luridly (and unnecessarily) to a level that left me
tempted to skim the book to try and sift some nuggets of story out of this
endless dross

Then there’s the characters. Most of the characters have
a title or label and a name. They can be referred to by ether and are also
often referred to by a vague description. So, Orlando can be referred to as
Orlando, or as The Mooncalfe, or as the man with the Japanese sword, or as the
man in a skirt. Any of them. Interchangeably. At random. And that isn’t just
Orlando – there’s Roland (The Chariot, the man in green). There’s Gaveston (the
Stirrup, guy with art tube, his clothing which was described which I can’t even
remember).

This makes it hard to keep track of who is who and isn’t
made easier by the 8 gazillion completely random characters (so many of which
don’t have names – they’re ALWAYS referred to by descriptions or sometimes just
“he”). I still aren’t sure if Guthrie and Gaveston are different people. The Duke
(who may be Leo?) has between 1 and 3 women hanging around him all of which run
by vague descriptions. There are two guys running around doing random things
that are completely tangential to the story. They refer to each by surnames but
are always described as “the big man” and “the small man”. I have no idea what
the point is. Jo’s ex is running around for REASONS, a couple of Jo’s
co-workers are also running around quite randomly (the number of utterly
pointless characters in this plot bemuse me). There are a bajillion knights and
I can’t even count them because they have different names or style of reference
every other paragraph – and as for deciding who is on who’s side, I just give
up.

On top of that we have some of the ridiculous dialogue
choices ever. Characters will be talking and one of them will throw in
completely random lines that make no sense, it’s only after a few lines that it
becomes clear one of the characters is actually singing and song lyrics are
just being dumped in the middle of the conversation. Worse, sometimes the
characters are at a club or just sat in front of the television and not only
will a completely uninvolved singer have lyrics appear in the conversation, but
even lines from the television will be added. Two people will be talking then
random lines will appear and you realise it’s the television (and it isn’t
always clear because who knows we could have a whole new knight known as
Television who will later be described by the lime green track suite he wears
and turn out to be one of the other characters all along only I was foolish
enough to remember their NAME and think that was sufficient to identify them).
And that’s aside from conversation where neither side seems to be actually
listening to the other and are just taking turns monologuing.

Finish this off with some really weird pointless scenes.
Like Jo and Ysabel waiting to go to work and Ysabel not drinking milk. That’s
it. A whole scene. I re-read it 4 times in case I’d completely missed something
(possibly a knight called Milk who always wore white) but it genuinely seems to
be utterly pointless. Even apparent main plot events – like the grand hunt –
peter out without actually going anywhere or achieving anything

I gave up. This is just far too much work for the amount
of fun I got out of it. The plot, the concept etc was not nearly good enough to
justify burrowing through the labyrinthine text, the bajillion unnecessary
characters and the sheer, random, pointless scenes. This book is really hard to
read and really not worth it.